


sunbeams on a cloudy day

by jennibrolawrence



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Coffeeshop AU, College AU, F/M, SLOW BUUUUUUURRRNNN, Slow Burn, did I say slow burn, here is the finnrey coffeeshop au that no one asked for, i know Nothing about coffee so have some coffee related puns, this came about as a result of a snapchat exchanged between my friends and me, this is T-rated so if you're looking for uh adult content this isnt the place pals, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennibrolawrence/pseuds/jennibrolawrence
Summary: "She was a sunbeam on a cloudy day, radiant without realizing it...Finn knew he had it bad if he was comparing her to weather-related phenomenons."The Finnrey coffeeshop AU that no one asked for but I am going to pretend everyone asked for. Barista!Finn, CollegeStudent!Rey, slow burn ensues. watch me turn this into an epic sprawling 100k fic with tragic backstories unlocked and Drama™. Leave me reviews I THRIVE ON HATRED AND POSITIVE FEEDBACK





	1. corgi latte

Hello it is i….jennibrolawrence back from THE DEAD and a VERY LONG WRITING HIATUS…...with a coffeeshop au for the ages that was inspired by two dear friends of mine (thanks lily and abby for ruining my life)Can’t wait for this to turn into a sprawling epic peppered with tragic backstory and sentient latte machines.

 

“You want anything else? We got an, uh, corgi latte. Special price today.” The barista gestured at a picture of a latte with a corgi drawn in the foam.

Rey squinted.

How did you draw a dog in a latte? She’d tried doing the leaf thing once and gotten foam all over her desk and her roommate had roasted her mercilessly.

“No, I’m good for now.” Six dollars was still too much for a latte. She didn't want to blow all her summer job money on coffee this year.

Rey took the piping-hot mocha from the alarmingly handsome barista–she could’ve sworn he winked–and walked back to her table, laden with textbooks and color-coded passages highlighted and sticky-noted.

It wasn’t even mid-September yet and she felt swamped already with an eighteen-credit load and student leadership requirements. Every time she closed her eyes old lithographs of trials from the 1800s swam before her eyes. Rey wished she hadn't taken two legal history courses at the same time, everything was starting to meld together.

 

She had given up on the library, since every table was full somehow and so, she’d Googled "coffee cheap near me", got in her 1999 Chevrolet Malibu, and drove out to New Hope, the closest town to Alliance. 

The top result was Rebel Brews. Rey had been ready to bet that it would be just another hipster-trying-to-be-Edgy™ coffeeshop, but it was worth a shot.

And she really did need to study for that History of American Law exam next week.

That brought her here, to the squashy booth with a pillow strategically placed over a rip in the stuffing.

The door opened, blowing several pages over in her textbook, and a young man walked in to the back of the shop.

Rey sighed, maybe she should’ve picked a booth further from the door, she’d reread the same paragraph three times –

 

> **WHIZZ-BANG-SPLASH-HISSSSSSSSSSS**.

The alarmingly handsome barista from earlier swore, a corgi raced by (why there was a corgi in a coffee shop was not something Rey felt like contemplating) and a young woman rushed in from the back.

“Seriously, Poe?! I just fixed this one. God. Now I’m going to have to put in overtime to fix this goddamn urn,” huffed the girl.

Rey snuck a look at her nametag. Rose. She thought she’d had a class with Rose last year, probably English or something, but itt would be weird to say hi right now, so she turned her attention back to the pile of sticky notes and highlighters.

Poe had the good grace to look contrite and mumbled an apology to no one in particular.

 

Twenty-five minutes and four paragraphs later, Rey got up to use the bathroom. She made awkward eye contact with Poe as she walked by, noting there was another barista in the back.

The young man who had walked in earlier just before the urn incident was putting on an apron.

When she returned, the young man - his nametag said “Finn” was wiping down the counter. Poe had disappeared somewhere, Rose was elbow-deep in a large machinelike device, and the corgi from earlier had taken up residence at Rey’s booth. She sighed, petting the dog, and turning the collar to look at the bone-shaped nametag.

“BB 8” it read. What a weird name for a dog. Then again, everything about this shop was …. _unique_ ….so far. Charming, in a way.

Gathering up her books – she wanted to make it back on campus for dinner – she decided she wanted to make this a regular study spot. Secret study spot. No one could know about this place, just like no one could know about her past. 

She'd had to park ridiculously far away since New Hope didn't seem to believe in parking spots in front of storefronts, and passed, consecutively, another coffee shop with "FIRST ORDER" emblazoned in neon letters, "Vitamins 101", and a FedEx. 

On a whim, she went inside the Vitamins 101. Maybe there was something out there that magically grew brain storage space. At the very least, she was a healthy young woman who needed to keep up on her Vitamin D levels and the nearest Walmart was ten miles past New Hope. This could save her a trip later on. 

There was a man hanging from a bar behind the register by the front of the store. "Hello," he said, as if dangling from a chinup bar was completely normal clerk behavior.

Rey blinked. "Oh, hi. Uh... do you have any....vitamins?" She could have kicked herself. Of course they had vitamins. This was a vitamin store.

"We do. Vitamin D is toward the back, to the left slightly on shelf E." the man said, swaying slightly, blue eyes unblinking.

Rey didn't question how the man had known she was looking for Vitamin D, and found it exactly where Upside-Down-Man had said it would be. She purchased two containers, paid, and left. 

On the drive back, she reflected on how odd her time in New Hope had been so far. That is, if you didn't count her childhood as being rather odd itself – she'd been shuttled between foster homes like Jessika, her roommate, shuttled between outfits on date night.

The longest she had spent in one place so far had actually been here, at Alliance University. She was even living in the same hall she'd been in last year. It was the most stability she had experienced, if she didn't think about the crippling debt she'd incur over the next few years in college and law school.

Rey parked outside the dorm and climbed the stairs to her floor. Jessika didn't even look up from her desk, engrossed in whatever airplane blueprint she was most obsessed with lately. Rey liked Jessika. They had been paired randomly as roommates last year and even become friends, something else Rey hadn't really had as a kid. 

Too much thinking about the past. College was for the future. She shook off all her ruminations and snuggled under her covers, laptop propped open next to her. There was still an hour left until the dining hall opened for dinner. Maybe she could get through an episode of _Gilmore Girls_  before then. 

* * *

 

WOOHOO!! FIRST CHAPTER OF COFFEESHOP AU COMPLETE. Second one forthcoming, I'll be alternating between Finn and Rey viewpoints for now and hopefully bringing in leia POVs occasionally. I can't promise daily updates...but will update at least twice a week for a while as I figure out the story and how steadily to reveal the Tragic Backstories that each character has... and yes, Ben Solo will show up at some point. But not Kylo. Because this is set on Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy. leave me wholesome comments and minimal hatred pls....I haven't written Star Wars fic like ever and also I have always struggled with how much or how little to include a chapter!


	2. lavender cortadas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corgi slurps, prolonged eye contact, and homework.

_In this chapter, we have an #interaction (yay!) Maybe they'll talk before chapter 10.....I kid, I kid. I have it mapped out and the slow burn will begin burning pretty soon ;))))_

* * *

 

Rey threw her bookbag on the carpet, then sprawled on her twin-extra-long bed.

What a day.   
She kept meaning to drive out to the coffeeshop to study, but just hadn’t been able to find the time.

It had been four days since she went. It was finally Friday afternoon and she had had only one class.

Pulling her phone out of her back pocket, she looked up the hours for ‘Rebel”, and the hours for the vitamin store.

She needed a job this semester and if she could get even ten hours a week it would help significantly, and she'd be able to start saving up for an apartment over the summer in case she didn't work on campus again.

The vitamin store dude would probably be more open to hiring than the coffeeshop, since she had no idea how to brew coffee other than put coffee in a filter. If she was really feeling fancy she would put an extra packet of sugar and creamer in.

Rebel closed at 8pm, which surprised her. It was only 2pm so she had plenty of time to drive out to New Hope.

“Jessika, I’m heading out,” Rey called. “Want anything?”

“True love,” Jessika yelled from the bathroom.

“I’ll try to find you some,” Rey joked.

Getting to New Hope was pretty easy. Once she got out of Alliance’s winding roads and steep hills, it was pretty much a straight shot to the middle of the county. Alliance University was situated at the foothills of the upper Appalachian mountains, in the middle of nowhere.

Rey liked being in the middle of nowhere and maintaining relative anonymity, despite her law school and public defender aspirations.

She was okay with people knowing who she was when she was like, thirty. At nineteen? Not so much.

She parked ridiculously far away once again, and strolled around for a bit.

The late-September air had begun cooling and the trees were tipped with gold. She peered in the storefronts she had passed a few days ago. The vitamin shop was closed, sadly.

A sign on the door said only, “Be back soon”.

She’d check back after she was done in Rebel.

“Hey, lovely,” the barista at the front said.

Rey looked at his nametag.

It was Poe, the handsome barista who had served her before.

“What will it be today? The special is, uh, lavender cortada. Wanna try a sample first?”

Rey had no idea what a cortada was, and frankly, she was shocked that one could even put lavender in coffee, but she figured she’d give it a try.

It was surprisingly good.

“I’ll have one for here,” she said.

She paid and sat in a booth.

The young man, Finn, from earlier, was walking around and wiping the other booths down.

Rey didn’t know what she should do, other than study, of course, but something about the young man made her want to have a conversation.

This was _highly_ unusual. Rey never felt urges to talk to people she didn't know. Talking to her friends was hard enough.

Rey stifled the urge to say hello and opened her laptop.

Three deleted and rewritten paragraphs of her paper later, she gave up.

Maybe a snack would help. After doing some quick math, she figured she had enough in her budget for a donut.

“Poe, right?”

He nodded.

“What donuts do you recommend?”

Poe lit up. “My personal favorite is our in-house special recipe, crafted by none other than our managers, Leia and Amilyn. It’s basically an everything bagel but in like, donut form, with a ton of frosting. Yeah, most first-time customers make that face too,” he laughed.

Rey blushed.

“The other real good ones are the plain with chocolate frosting and the one with raspberry jam in the middle.”

Rey chose the chocolate-frosted donut and took it back to her booth. Maybe next time she’d try the “everything donut” if she felt like having a heart attack.

The donut proved to spur Rey’s motivation for four paragraphs, after which she got stuck again.

Finn was now at the front, serving someone who was very tall and broody-looking.

She didn’t know where Poe had gone–probably to eat an everything donut on a break.

Suddenly, Poe came out from the back, apron-less, and the corgi leashed in his hand.

The corgi, BB-8, Rey recalled, lunged toward her.

Rey stretched her hand out and was rewarded with a hearty slurp.

She smiled.

“Sorry about that,” Poe laughed. “She gets real excited about new customers. This is mild for her, honestly.”

“I wouldn’t complain if she knocked me over. I love dogs,” Rey said.

"The only reason my boss lets her hang out here is customers like her,” Poe said.

Rey suspected Poe wasn’t being entirely truthful with that last statement, but she’d only met him four days ago, so who was she to ask further questions? 

“Well, I’m sure she’s very popular.”

“Yeah, sometimes I think she likes being here more than home,” Poe said. “Anyway, I should let you get back to whatever you were doin’. You go to Alliance?”

“How did you guess?”

“Alliance is the only college in a two-hour radius. I went there a couple years ago myself. Is the football team still terrible?”

Rey smiled. “Absolutely awful. They did manage to win a game last week, the campus was nuts for three days after.”

“Good ol’ Alliance. If you see Professor Kanata, tell her Poe says hi, okay?”

Rey nodded. “See you around.” Rey looked around the store.

The tall, broody customer from earlier had left and now, Finn was just standing at the cashier while Rose from earlier was cleaning out a large urn.

Rey tensed her leg muscles, as if she were about to get up. Then she thought better of it.

Who in their right mind just went up to a barista and started talking?

Moreover, why did she want to talk to this guy so badly? She shook her head. Ugh. Maybe she’d be able to order from him next time.

* * *

 

If Rey had been looking in his direction, she would’ve noticed he was looking at her too.

* * *

 

Finn was looking - all right, _staring_ \- at the girl seated a dozen feet away, deep in thought. Why did he want to talk to her so badly?

There was something intriguing.... something more. 

She seemed so full of light. 

Finn internally rolled his eyes. There went his dumb English major-sensibilities again.

In the thousands of customers and hundreds of business clients he had run across in his Starbucks career, not one had intrigued him as much as this girl, frowning at her laptop in the orange polyester booth.

He was frustrated at himself.

He also didn’t want to come across as weird, creepy, awkward, or worse, a combination of all three.

Busying himself with wiping down coffee mugs, Finn almost hoped that a gaggle of middle schoolers would come in to order frappes.

Mixing the annoyingly ingredient-laden, complex drinks would take his mind off this strange fascination in his brain.

Unfortunately-yet-fortunately, a gaggle of eighth-graders spilled loudly into the shop five minutes later.

Each of them ordered a different flavor of frappe, and Finn smiled charmingly as he took their order while dying inside.

Five frappes, and one of them was the one made with that raspberry syrup that was kept way in the back because hardly anyone ever asked for it.

He called out to Rose to fetch the syrup, and smiled at the fourteen-year-old. “We’ll have your drinks as soon as they’re ready. It’ll be a couple minutes.”

He could physically feel her eye-roll.

The girl at the booth looked up, part amused and part annoyed.

They locked eyes.

For that moment, Finn thought his soul was... _basking_?

No, that would be ridiculous.

Basking.

What a silly word. Souls didn’t bask in the sun or in the split-second gaze of a random college student.

Maybe his soul just felt good that someone else was annoyed by these ridiculous girls.

She smiled slightly, quirking an eyebrow.

Finn smiled back, tilting his head slightly, as if to say, "these kids, man".

Drinks made, he placed them on the counter.

The girls – really, it was almost fascinating, watching them move together, it was like they were a synchronized swimming conglomerate – collected their frappes and left in a whirl of giggles and shrieks.

He looked over to the girl, only to find that her head was again bowed and deep in her work.

Oh well.

Maybe he’d be up front next time she came in, and he could learn her name.

He didn’t want to distract her from whatever she looked so intensely involved in.

About an hour later, the girl packed up her things, and walked out of the shop.

Finn had another four hours of his shift left. He hoped she’d be back tomorrow.

He was up front most of the day, since Poe didn’t work weekends.

* * *

 

hehe eye contact has been Made what next......standing closer than ten feet,,

_I hope you enjoyed this installment of Sunbeams :) I so love writing Finnrey and have shipped them since I saw TFA in theaters. If anyone wants to join me in writing passionate fanmail to JJ Abrams to beg for more than two scenes worth of #finnrey #content, feel free to do so. We need more than that hug at the end of TLJ. Anyway, I hope you have a great Tuesday night and Wednesday morning or whatever time of day you are reading this. <3, jennibrolawrence_


	3. mint mochas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there aren't actually any mint mochas in this chapter sorry 
> 
> anyway in this chapter we inch ever closer to an actual finnrey #interaction and there are obscure star wars references thrown in

_CHAPTER 3 haha oops guys meant to update ages ago but uh real life Struck so anyway have TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS IN A ROW PLUS SOME MINOR UNLOCKING OF TRAGIC BACKSTORIES…and the first time i posted this chapter NONE OF THE FORMATTING SAVED....SIDE-EYEING U REAL HARD @ AO3.... p.s. rey is a college girl in this fic, this is simultaneously a college au and coffeeshop au  ~~maybe i should tag this collegecoffeeshop-au also i keep typing coffee as coffe~~_

* * *

 

The next morning, Finn came in an hour early just in case the girl showed up to study.

He really wanted to get to know her, but he didn’t know how to get to know her. He couldn’t just walk up to her and ask her to tell him her life story, could he?

He didn’t know why he was so apprehensive about this.

In his old corporate life he had had no qualms about asking people to bare all (figuratively, of course) in the name of #authenticity.

Did he really just hashtag authenticity in his own head?

Starbucks had really done a number on him.

Finn busied himself under the guise of dusting several coffee urns, despite there being no dust and Rose had dusted everything the night before when she closed up shop.

“Finn?” The voice of the owner echoed through the shop.

Oh, right. Saturdays were when Mrs. Solo, no, _Leia_ , came in to check on things.

He really needed to stop calling her “Mrs” or he was going to get his paycheck deducted.

“Yes,  Mrs.…..Leia?” He forced the name out of his mouth even though Leia was the farthest from intimidating, at least, to him.

He had been raised to always call everyone “Mr.” or “Mrs” and he still felt awfully weird inside calling other adults by their first name, despite being nearly (okay, in six months) twenty-five himself.

Was twenty-five adult? Sure didn’t feel like it.

“You’re in awfully early. What’s up?”

“Oh, you know. Uh, just trying to make sure everything is spic-and-span for the weekend rush,” Finn lied.

Nope. Totally not hanging around like a creep for a college girl. Not at all.

Oh God. What if she was under eighteen? Some kids came to college when they were seventeen.

Finn stabilized his breathing and tried not to sweat. _For goodness’ sake, pull yourself together!_

Snapping out of his self-induced panic, he realized Leia was talking to him.

“I like a hard worker. Reminds me of my husband, he was always first in at the auto shop and last out,” Leia smiled proudly.

Her husband had owned and worked at Harrison’s Auto for over fifty years until he’d passed recently, in an accident.

Finn had just started working at Rebel when the accident happened.

He and Poe had essentially taken over managing for a month while Leia got her husband’s (Han? Hans? Something along those lines had been his name) affairs in order.

Finn had gotten the sense that Leia and Han had had one of those stars-defying, galaxy-bending loves, one that didn’t come around very often.

They had been married for just about fifty years, something Finn hoped to have, but he also got the sense that those decades largely had not been pure joy.

Poe had told him, in the midst of everything, that he felt Leia had gotten the short end of the stick in life and she deserved so much more than that. “She seems to lose everything eventually. She lost a kid early on and then her other kid went down, uh, not the best path. And then she lost a senatorial seat after decades of holding it, and then Han died. A lot of that happened around the same time frame. The Leia you know now is not the same Leia I met a couple years ago,” Poe had mused, more to himself than Finn, over a beer after work one day.

It still made Finn sad to think of losing a kid. He didn’t dare ask how the kid had been lost even though he was desperately curious to know.

The storyteller inside him always wanted to know everyone’s lives and reasons for making the choices they did.

Sometimes on breaks, Finn would take out his notepad and write down sentences that had popped in his brain. Finn felt pretentious and vaguely Hemingway-esque doing it, but he knew it was the only way that future novel was going to happen.

One of these days, when he had finally made enough money in stocks and tips, he would quit the shop, sit down and write the goddamn novel. He would write it, even if it meant digging through a dozen notebooks and stringing all the sentences together to make a coherent story.

Leia went into the office near the back, where the other manager, Amilyn, usually worked a couple hours a day, and Finn could hear a low conversation between the two but not enough to make words out.

It was about time for his shift to start, anyway, so he figured he’d better get behind the cashier.

The shop would open at 9 and was always busier on weekends since most people were in town. He hoped one of those people would be the girl from the past couple days.

* * *

 

Rey’s alarm went off at six o’clock sharp. She groaned.

“Turn that shit off,” Jessika mumbled from her side of the room.

Rey felt bad, remembering they’d established a no-alarms-before-seven-on-weekends routine last year.

Quickly swiping the snooze button on her phone, Rey rolled over on her side. Early morning was her prime social media stalking time, as bad as that sounded.

Opening Facebook, she decided to look up any Poes who had gone to Alliance. His name and profile popped right up–Poe wasn’t that common of a name, anyway–and she decided this was stalking gold.

His profile picture was of him with the dog from the coffee shop.

What had he been like in college? He had told her he'd gone to Alliance.

He’d graduated about eight years ago so that would make him in his very late twenties…let’s see if he had any college photos…

Rey swiped quickly until she arrived at his first profile picture.

It was a picture of him (with a mustache!) wearing a ski cap holding a bag of Cheetos in one hand with chopsticks in the other.

She snickered.

Her first profile picture was of her taking a selfie with a slider phone, back when she had side bangs and wore only pastels, so maybe she shouldn’t be making fun of him.

In other photos, he appeared with friends or alone, but never with anyone who looked older or resembled him.

Rey could relate to that.

In the many homes she’d been in, there were only a few where she actually felt connected to the foster parents.

Maybe Poe had been a foster kid, too.

Or maybe he just didn’t like taking pictures with older adults.

She was reading way too much into this.

In a moment of wild boldness, she tapped the “Add Friend” button on Poe’s Facebook.

It wasn’t like he had to _accept_ it.

Rey didn’t really have that many friends on Facebook, and she didn’t post much beyond lurking and the occasional update on how school was.

Jessika mumbled something in her sleep along the lines of “come snuggle me daddy” and Rey snickered to herself.

One of her favorite parts of being roommates with Jessika, besides the minimal conflict and relative neatness, was overhearing Jessika’s sleeptalk. Often it made no sense.

Rey sighed. It was nearly 7 now, but the coffee shop didn’t open til 9.

She also couldn’t afford to buy a coffee every time she went if she was going to be going regularly.

Hm. Maybe she could just buy everyone socks for Christmas and that way she could continue affording coffee.

Thinking about money made her think about her student loans, which was stressful, so she quit thinking about money.

Rey slipped out of bed, grabbing her shower stuff, and down the hall to the community bathroom.

Her dorm was one of the older ones, with a community bathroom on each floor, which she actually kind of liked.

Other people complained all the time about it, but Rey had never felt such community or closeness before living in a dorm.

She was also used to sharing spaces with other people, so it didn’t bother her.

She ducked in one of the shower stalls and undressed quickly.

The water pressure was actually decent this time of day, when everyone was hungover from Friday night and sleeping in.

There had been mornings where there would be eight people showering at once, and she’d be in the ninth shower trying to wring the soap out of her hair with the weak pressure.

Jyncassian Hall had its charms, that was for sure. 

After her shower, Rey contemplated making an effort in her appearance.

She had this notion most every day, and often let the idea fly away.

She looked fine without makeup and her hair was cooperative enough that it could air-dry without needing product placed in it.

Nah, she didn’t need to do anything to her face.

It was just coffee and studying, not Buckingham Palace.

She pulled her pajamas back on and wrapped her towel around her head, toting her caddy down the hall.

Back in her room, Jessika was awake and scrolling through her phone, snickering at a meme. She showed Rey (it was one of those cat video things) and Rey gave an obligatory laugh.

Rey dressed in jeans and an Alliance hoodie.

“Jessika, you want anything from the dining hall?”

“If you wait a couple minutes I’ll come with,” Jessika replied, rolling out of bed.

Five minutes later, they were in the elevator leading to the lobby of the hall.

Once you got outside the lobby, there was a small courtyard between Jyncassian Hall and two other residence halls, Andor and Baze (often tagged on Instagram as #baesinBaze).

Alliance was a fairly small campus, so the dining hall was a less-than-five-minute walk.

The two entered Jacen Student Center, where the dining hall was located, and went in for an early brunch.

“So do you have anyone new in your life or are you too busy with those law books?” Jessika asked, smirking.

Rey rolled her eyes. “You’d be the first to know, trust me. There is this one guy in my law history class who keeps ogling me. It’s gross. Actually….there might be someone else.”

She sighed. “Okay, so this is really dumb, but I found a coffee shop over in New Hope and there’s a really cute barista there. Two cute baristas but I’m pretty sure one of them is too old for me, and I'm not interested in him like that anyway.”

Jessika was fully invested now, leaning across the table, hands folded. Was she salivating? Rey must be imagining things.

“Tell me _everything_ you know about them.”

“Uh…one of them is named Finn. He seems really sweet and I haven’t talked to him yet but we kind of stared at each other for a bit.”

“That’s weird.”

“I know. I hope he’s in today so I can introduce myself.”

“You know what they say, staring then caring.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“I can make it a thing.”

Rey laughed heartily, and Jessika snickered into her spoonful of eggs. “Anyway, I’m going over there later this morning to study. Do you want to come with me to see for yourself?”

Rey pulled up Poe’s Facebook on her phone to show Jessika what he looked like, and she shrugged.

“He’s okay I guess.”

Just okay? Rey rather suspected that if Poe ever heard anyone describing him as “just okay”, he’d be mortally wounded.

When they arrived back in their room, Jessika said she was going to devote at least an hour to studying her mechanics diagrams, and then they could go.

Rey took advantage of the time to read a full chapter of her law history book, adding a couple sticky notes here and there.

On the drive to New Hope, which was about thirty minutes not counting the fifteen it took to get out of the winding foothills, Rey and Jessika jammed out to some music and rolled the windows down.

They passed an Amish farm, with a family out front, and Jessika peered out the window. “I didn’t realize we were this deep in the country,” she said.

“Well, New Hope is closer to Lancaster than we are, there’s bound to be a couple Amish families,” Rey replied somewhat absent-mindedly.

She took a hard left, pressing the gas, and turned into the road that would lead them to the main street of New Hope.

This time, she found a parking spot closer to the shop.

Rey gestured to the vitamin shop on their side. “This is where I got my vitamin D that one time–not like that,” Rey frowned, hearing Jessika’s snort behind her.

“Rebel is a couple storefronts down but we can explore a bit if you want.” “Nah. I want to see this allegedly cute barista you told me about.”

They walked down a block and turned left to enter Rebel. Finn was at the cashier. Their eyes locked again, and Rey thought she felt her heart jump. That was ridiculous. Hearts didn’t jump.

Was she turning red? A quick glance sideways at Jessika told her that her face was probably still a normal shade. She hoped so, anyway.

Rey went to take a seat, choosing the orange booth, and Jessika ordered from Finn.

She didn’t know what overcame her. Less than a week of coming here, and no conversations.

Why was she freaking out over the prospect of ordering coffee from a barista? This was dumb. She got up, steeling herself. She was going to order some damn coffee, never mind her budget.

 

* * *

 

_hehe finnrey hehe Next chapter we get some ACTUAL FINNREY INTERACTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TWO CINNAMON ROLLS COLLIDE I CANT WAIT WOW IT’S BEEN SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS Anyway please give this a comment or keysmash. I also infused some of my college experience into this, having gone to an extremely small liberal arts college in a small town in the Midwest. Alliance is a little like that, but it’s in Pennsylvania, in case you hadn’t picked up ;) Let me know if you have any college tropes you want to see. leave a review if you liked it, leave a review if you didn't like it. ps check out my crackfic about rey solo and her crazy family, I'm updating that tonight too_


	4. Chapter 4

_Heyyyyyy guys sorry I fell off the face of the planet... i have been stupid busy at work but anwaAAYYY…..  here is the CHAPTER of INTERACTION TM. _

_Ugh honestly I so want to speed ahead and get to the point where our favorite space kids are dating but of course we must build a solid friendship first <33333 Here’s to getting there. In ten chapters or so. Just kidding. We’ll see, I may not have enough self-restraint to be burning it out THAT slowly._

 

 

Rey approached the counter; mentally figuring how many ramen packets this next cup of coffee would be worth. Whatever.

She cleared her throat, steeled her nerves, and asked, “Hi. What’s good today?”

Immediately she wanted to kick herself, jump into the sun, and then throw herself off a cliff. _Stupid stupid stupid this is why you don’t talk to boys stupid stupid stupid…_

“Uh, hi. We have our everything bagel special, blueberry biscotti, and the drink of the day is Feelin’ like Fall… which is basically a spiced maple latte,” the barista said.

“Okay, I’ll have the ….. ‘Feelin’ like Fall” drink.”

“What’s your name?”

Rey suspected he was asking her name just to get it, because it was literally just her and Jessika at this hour in the shop. She gave it anyway, making sure to spell it out, paid, and then went to sit down while she waited for her spiced maple latte.

Jessika had the biggest shit-eating grin Rey had ever seen her wear. “Hee hee,” Jessika snickered. “He asked your naaaaaame.”

“Shut up!”

“Get his number.”

“I am not getting my barista’s number.”

“Oh, so now he’s _your_ barista?”

Rey sighed. This hole seemed to grow ever deeper. She’d already bought six ramen packet’s worth of a maple spiced latte. What was one more reckless decision today?

“Rey! Your drink is ready!” Finn called.

“Thanks. I…uh…yeah, uh….” Rey chickened out, turning around, clutching the steaming hot concoction to her chest, matching the steaming embarrassment building inside.

She could never show her face here again.

Slinking back into her seat, Rey got her laptop out of her backpack, and opened it, still feeling her face burning.

“Oh my god. You’re _pathetic_.” Jessika whispered, “I’ll be back,” she said.

She ordered the same drink Rey had, and then snuck a small piece of paper across the counter.

She did _not_! Rey’s jaw dropped.

Jessika’s smirk grew as she walked back to the booth.

“You know I had to do it. I’d be listening to you whining about "your" barista for the better part of the next eight months, sweetie.”

Rey knew Jessika was right, but she couldn’t bear to acknowledge it, so she pretended not to hear.

After a page and a half of a five-paragraph-analysis, her latte had finally cooled enough for consumption. Damn. That was _good_.

Jessika was slaving over a blueprint sketch when Finn suddenly walked over.

“Hey, uh, which one of your numbers is this?” he asked.

Both girls turned red. “It’s….it’s mine,” Rey mumbled.

“All right, just wanted to make sure. Rey, right?”

Rey nodded, wanting desperately for the ground to swallow her whole, ideally like that sinkhole from Jessika’s favorite TV show, _The Good Place_.

“Th-thanks,” she croaked.

Finn was finally behind the counter and out of earshot. 

Rey hissed, “I am going to kill you and string you up by your toenails, Jessika.”

Her only reply was a smirk.

 

* * *

 

Finn couldn’t believe his luck. He had gotten the girl’s number, without being weird or feeling creepy. Obviously, Rey’s friend had done it, so maybe it wasn’t 100% consensual. Was consensual the right word? He’d worry about it later.

Both girls were in the bathroom now or something, so he took the slip of paper, scrawled “Rey” on it, and pondered the unique spelling.

Maybe it was short for something. He could ask later? Wait, how did you even start a conversation over text? How did you do this whole talking to someone’s number-you-got?

He was absolutely going to have to ask Poe for some advice.

A couple of people filtered through during the rest of the morning, and Rey and her friend continued to do homework at their booth.

It was 1pm, and the end of Finn’s shift, so he hung up his apron in the back closet and then swung around through the front.

“Rey, nice to meet you,” he said, then immediately wanted to die.

“You too,” she said, and smiled.

Death-craving averted, Finn left the shop, smiling wider than he had in a while.

He’d need to talk to Poe before sending a text.

* * *

 

_There you have it! They have spoken to each other! It's lit fam_

_i promise to go no more than a week without updating this omg im so sorry_


	5. matcha smoothies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is texting and level one tragic backstory unlocking

_hello friends it is i, jennibrolawrence, aka erin, aka writer of fics and taker of names here with another chapter for your consumption!! wow i cant believe im updating so close together DONT GET USED TO THIS.... in this chapter level 1 of Finn’s Tragic Backstory ™ is unlocked….so is some of rey's …..hehe all aboard the pain train!!_

* * *

 

Finn walked out around the back of the building, to where the employee parking was.

After pulling out his phone and dialing "2", he unlocked his car.

“Yo,” Poe’s voice crackled over the phone.

“Hey, so you know the girl from the coffee shop?”

“Rey? Oh yeah, I know her, she goes to my alma mater. I talked to her a bit the other day. Nice girl.”

“Of course you know her. Well, uh, I was calling you to ask for some…advice,” Finn sighed, turning his key in the ignition.

“So her friend came up to me and slipped me this piece of paper with Rey’s number on it. Should I call her or text her?”

“Why are you asking me, a known gay, how to talk to a girl romantic-styles?”

He had Finn there. “Sh-shut up. You know how to talk to anyone. I’m-I’m not looking to date her or anything. I just feel like it would be rude to not at least contact her!”

Finn set the phone to speaker and put it in his lap as he pulled his car out and drove onto the main street.

“You still there?”

“Yeah. Just had to pull my car out.”

“Mind if I come over later for some Thrones watching?”

“Dude, you have a key. You don’t need to ask. We’ve been over this, Poe.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I’d suggest texting her first rather than calling. Just start out with like, a hi, how are you, or something.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Keep me updated. I gotta go walk Beebee.”

“See ya later.” Finn hung up, then focused back on the road.

He lived in a small apartment in Monmothma, the next town over from New Hope, and had been there for about two years.

He’d moved there when he’d quit his former big-coffee job in an ethics-fueled epiphany,(which was a reason different from what he’d told the company; he had said he wanted to spend time writing a book and working on honing his app development skills...which was not altogether untrue. There were a myriad of reasons for quitting, anyway).

Finn tried not to think about his corporate days too often, which was hard because he worked in a coffee shop. He had been rapidly rising through the ranks as a coder and then sat on the app development board, making major decisions and design calls. It had been some of the most exciting work he’d ever had a chance to be a part of, and he did miss the collaborative spirit.

Everything had changed when he’d been sent on a bean-exploring trip overseas (he felt pretentious even thinking about it) and realized the amount of exploitation happening behind the scenes. It was tantamount to slave labor and he could not be a part of it while still sleeping at night. So he’d resigned six months after, and they had given him a great big “Happy Book Writing!” sendoff party and a nice pay package. That had kept him afloat while finding a new place to live that wasn’t California, but wasn’t too East Coasty either.

He had settled first in Pittsburgh, spent a few months there trying to decide if he wanted to apply to grad school, then googled small towns in the state, and found the trifecta of Monmothma-New Hope-Alliance.

There had been a coffee shop in New Hope that was hiring, and Finn wanted a job that wasn’t a 60-hour-a-week grind while he started writing his Epic Untitled Novel.

Finn realized he was about to make a wrong turn, and pulled his mind out of the past.

Once he’d gotten in the right lane, Finn allowed himself to ponder Rey. He did hope a friendship developed. Other than Poe and a couple people from the church he attended, he had been short on friends the past few years. It would be good to be friends with someone nearby.

It was also a blank slate in a way, no expectations placed on him to be super intelligent or super resilient or super-whatever like so many people had expected of him in the past.

That was the nice thing about small towns, despite the microagressions, bland food, and lack of public transportation.

No one really knew Finn’s life or backstory. It was refreshing to just go to work, and not have to impress hundreds of people. Of course, if he ever got to a point in a friendship with Rey where he felt comfortable telling her his life story, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Once Finn’s car was parked outside the apartment building, and he’d gotten his mail from the PO box, he walked inside.

His apartment was on the first floor and had a nice overlook to some wooded hills in the back.

He’d better send that text before he lost his nerve.

Punching in the numbers from the slip of paper Rey’s friend had given him, he created a new contact.

God. He didn’t even know her last name.

_hey Rey, this is Finn from the coffee shop just wanted to say hi_

No. More punctuation? He deleted the entire message and attempted again.

_Hi, Rey. This is Finn from the coffee shop. Just saying hi._

No. He was saying “hi” twice in the same sentence. Plus, that one sounded too formal. Finn had not freaked this much over texting a girl since eighth grade.

He had forgotten how nerve-wracking it was. At least he was texting on a touchscreen and not a T9 keyboard.

_hey rey, this is finn from the coffeeshop :)_

Good start. He hit send before he lost courage.

She also had an iPhone, bc he saw the message dots pop up. She was texting back right away! He needed to sit down for this.

 

* * *

 

Rey’s phone buzzed. She really needed to pee but she’d just text whoever this was, she didn’t recognize the number.

It was the guy from the coffee shop! She texted back hurridly, crossing her legs.

**_hey finn! Thanks for texting back! Good to see ya today_ **

Rey took the phone with her to the bathroom – she didn’t want Finn to think she was ignoring her or a slow texter. The dots popped up on her screen. Once Rey was done with her business, she read the text.

_good to see you too. Hope its not weird that im texting you but i thought it would be rude to just take your number and not contact you_

That was very sweet. Rey smiled. She put the phone on the counter while washing her hands and then walked back to her room before she sent the next text.

**_no it's not weird!! I appreciate it_ **

_thanks, well technically I have your friend to thank for getting your number haha_

**_that was jessika my roommate, she thinks im going to die alone lol_ **

_haha my best friend says that too so same_

**_lol so what do you do when youre not making frappes for teenage girls_ **

_I write_

_**cool! What kind of writing** _

_im working on this book that will probably never see the light of day lol :P_

**_what genre of book? high fantasy? romance? self-help?_ **

_haha selfhelp i wish! that would almost be easier to write... so basically its this coming-of-age story that ive been trying to tell for years but tbh i still don’t know who’s coming of age or why im writing a coming of age story. It’s very call me by your name-ish but not in a gay way or romance way at all if that makes sense??_

_**mmm sounds like something id like to read, I need a break from all my textbooks and that sounds like a good thing to get lost in** _

_thanks that’s the first time someones said something nice about it haha jk most people say ‘oh interesting’ and then move on_

Rey steeled her nerves and sent the next text.

**_we should hang out and talk about your book sometime when youre not making frappes_ **

_id enjoy that!_

**_whats your last name so I can put you in my contacts officially_ **

_sure thing, my last name is antilles, (pronounced an-till-ees if you really want to know).... you?_

Rey paused. She had never been sure of what her real last name was. She’d been suddenly thrust into the foster care system at age 5, with nearly no memories before then. Her caseworker had said her name was Raven Salow, according to the answer Rey herself had given when she’d been found on the streets in Los Angeles. She’d always had an inkling her name wasn’t really Raven, and had started going by the nickname Rey around age 8. She also suspected her last name wasn’t Salow, but it was on her information.

**_it's Salow_ **

_ok! Got all your info in my phone now. Its been great talking but I have to go watch game of thrones with poe now, he’s making me do a rewatch of the entire thing. save me_

**_lol good luck...it was nice talking!_ **

 

Rey set her phone down on her desk. She couldn’t get the smile off her face and felt rather silly.

Jessika came in, presumably from her study group, and smirked. “He texted you, didn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“I knew I’d done the right thing.”

“I guess I don’t have an excuse to kill you in your sleep now.”

“You’ll find another excuse eventually.”

They laughed, and Rey turned back to her homework for the rest of the afternoon, smile still lingering.

* * *

 

Hehe guys they TEXTED!!! REAL ACTUAL TEXTING!! WHAT’S NEXT?? HANGING OUT?? (also how much do u wanna bet poe’s favorite game of thrones character is nedd and he cried himself to sleep after the end of season one when it first came out)

Anyway please leave reviews or comments or things you wanna see!! <3 you and <3 my space babies <3333333333333xinfinity

 


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